


Feeling Good

by mydeira



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-01
Updated: 2013-01-01
Packaged: 2017-11-23 06:05:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/618911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mydeira/pseuds/mydeira
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A new day, a new life, finding a place in a new world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Feeling Good

  
“This isn’t working, is it?”

The Doctor glared down at Rose.  “Mid-coitus, really?  You couldn’t have waited?”

She looked slightly abashed, worrying her lower lip.  “Sorry.”

Pulling out, he rolled off her with a sigh.

“Hold on!” she protested.  “I didn’t mean this wasn’t working.  I meant this as in us wasn’t working.”

“You could have been a bit more specific, Rose.”  The Doctor was embarrassed by how whiny he sounded.  But why shouldn’t he be?  He’d been right there when she’d opened her gob, killing the mood completely.  He frowned at his still mostly erect cock.  Okay, not completely then.

“I’m sorry, John.  Really.  It just sort of slipped out.”

He didn’t hear much beyond the “John”.  Human he might be, but he wasn’t John Bloody Smith.  He was still the Doctor, in all the ways that mattered.  When Donna’s personality wasn’t asserting itself, that was.  Which wasn’t so bad because it at least made things more interesting.  Except for when he couldn’t shut up.  He’d always been a talker but this was something else entirely.  Even he recognized that.

“John?”  Rose shook his shoulder.

Right, he should be paying attention here, shouldn’t he?  “I do wish you wouldn’t call me that.”

“Tough.”  What right did she have to sound put out?  She’d started this, hadn’t she?  “It’s what we agreed on.”

“No, you suggested and I sort of went along with it.”  He had done a lot of just going along with things the first few months here.  Kicked out of his proper universe by himself…yeah, he was entitled to be out of sorts.  “Mainly because I was sick of those long pauses before you got around to saying ‘Doctor’.  But that’s who I am.  And since we aren’t an us anymore, I’d prefer to be called by my proper name, if you don’t mind.”

“Proper name.”  She snorted and crawled out of bed, grabbing up her robe.  “You don’t have a proper name, Doctor.”

“Yeah, well, just be glad I don’t go by The Master.”  Harrumphing, the Doctor climbed out of bed as well and slipped on his black trousers and dark gray jumper.  He had discovered that he’d developed a fondness for wild patterns and too much color, so he’d forced himself to stick to neutrals.  He was not repeating his sixth self’s fashion mistakes, thank you very much.  “So now what?”

Rose shrugged.  “Not sure.  You can stay here as long as you need to.  I’m not kicking you out onto the streets.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“We’re not good together.  Even you can’t see that.”

No, they really weren’t.  When they weren’t shagging, they were either arguing or doing their best not to argue, which involved a lot of not talking.  And he was horrible at not talking.  While he knew better than to go there, he said, “Would have been different if I was the other me?” 

She was quiet for a moment, but then she shook her head.  “No, I don’t think we would have been good together like this either.  I get now why he—you—whatever—didn’t try this before.  We work as mates.  Just not more.”  Crossing her arms, she leaned back against the wall and thumped her head a few times for good measure.  “Stupid ape brain.  Might have saved us all a lot of trouble if I’d figured it out sooner.”

He had to smile at that.  “A millennium of being Time Lord didn’t help me much.  Believe it or not, I can be a bit thick sometimes too.”

“You?  No way.”  She smiled in returned.  A genuine smile.  He realized he hadn’t seen a genuine smile from her since…before.

“Great big dumbo, that’s me,” he said more to himself.  Donna had him pegged right from the get go.  Best thing that had happened to him since, well, Rose, he supposed.  He hoped his other self hadn’t gone and done anything stupid.  Human-Time Lord Metacrises could be tricky.  All right, impossible.  But he was good at impossible.  He was also really good at doing stupid things.  Damn.  Well, with any luck, Donna would slap some sense into him.  She was really, really good at that.

“And you’re a million miles away again.”

“Sorry.”  What else was there to say?  He used to be a lot better at multitasking.  His brain was Time Lord, even if his body wasn’t, so it shouldn’t be an issue.  Hormones.  Humans had so many bloody hormones whizzing around.  That was the trouble.  “I told you I didn’t do domestic.”

“Wish I’d listened.”  Shoving off the wall, Rose headed to the bathroom.  “Might as well head into work.”

Work.  Torchwood.  Wonderful.

If he ever met up with himself again, he was going to wring his scrawny neck for dumping him here.

* * *

The only good thing about the Torchwood in this universe was that the Doctor had carte blanche thanks to the Tyler clan.  He had his very own office with his very own secretary and most of the time people left him very much on his own.  Especially his secretary.  He had a sneaking suspicion he terrified the poor woman, a thought he enjoyed a little too much some days.  He never realized how much he would miss having beings afraid of him.

Unfortunately, when he arrived, Rena was nowhere to be found.  The Doctor was beginning to get the feeling that this was one of those days where things just kept going from bad to worse.  Though no Rena meant he could ignore the phone and people that happened to stop by.

“Oi!”

He froze with his hand on the doorknob.  It was a distinctive and unmistakable “Oi!”  One that he had heard many times.  Quite often followed by “spaceman”.

“I’m talking to you, mate.”

Turning, the Doctor found himself face to face with Donna Noble.  This universe’s Donna Noble.  It still took every bit of restraint he had to not pull her into his arms and twirl her around.  He settled on grinning.  “Donna Noble.  Look at you.”

Her eyes narrowed suspiciously.  “Haven’t gone by Noble in ten years.  Personnel said the last girl cut out in a hurry.  Well, I’ll tell you right up front,” she closed the small distance between them, “nobody, and I mean nobody,” she poked his chest, “harasses me out of a job.  You got that?”

It only made him grin more.  Different life, same woman.  How brilliant!

“Are we clear, Mr. Smith?”

“Doctor, actually.  Just Doctor.”

“Sweetheart, I was married to a doctor.  You’re no doctor.”

“Am so.”  He had all the forged credentials to back it up.

“Academic doctors aren’t doctors,” she informed him.  “All safe in your cozy little laboratories, buried in books, while the real doctors are out there healing people, saving lives, even if it means risking their own.”  Donna’s anger wavered for the briefest of moments before sliding effectively back into place.  “And that is why you are Mr. Smith regardless of how much of the alphabet you’ve got after your name.”

If he had learned anything, he had learned that there were just some things you did not argue with Donna Noble on.  Be she Donna Noble or Donna Whoever.

“Mr. Smith it is,” he agreed, forcing the grin away.  Maybe this was going to be one of those days that went from worse to better.  He could use one of those.

* * *

The day neither got better nor worse.  Actually, it was a pretty even split.  Having Donna around brought back a sense of rightness that seemed to have been missing since he got dumped here.  But having Donna around as his secretary meant she was constantly laying into him about one thing or another.  They wound up spending most of the afternoon instituting a filing system for him.  He hated filing systems.  Or organizational systems of any type.  So long as he knew where things were, what did it matter?

He made the mistake of saying that out loud and Donna glared right through him.  The Doctor remembered then that not only was Donna brilliant, but she could be downright terrifying sometimes.

“Now then,” Donna said as she was getting to leave that evening, “I expect you here on time tomorrow, Mr. Smith.  No excuses.  If I get in trouble for running late, you should too.  _Comprende_?”

“ _Si, senora_.”  He saluted.

And for the first time all day, she smiled at him.  Faint, but still a smile.  “ _Buenos noches, Senor Smith_.”  Then she left.

With no disasters or imminent invasions to keep him there, the Doctor headed out as well.

He arrived at the flat he shared with Rose in much higher spirits than he’d left it.

“Someone’s in a good mood,” Rose commented as she dished out that night’s take-away.  They were both rubbish cooks and had early on settled on a routine of various take-aways on the weekdays, and real food at Jackie and Pete’s on the weekends.

The Doctor grabbed up a carton of chicken curry and flopped down on the couch.  “Rena quit.”

“Damn, that means Pete won the pool.”

“Wait, there was a pool on how long my secretary would last?”

“Oh, don’t act so surprised.  It was only a matter of time.”

“So you lot made a game out of it?”

“If it makes you feel any better, Mum made the suggestion.”  Rose sprawled out in the easy chair with her Kung Pao guinea fowl.

“Figures it would have come from Jackie Bloody Tyler.  That woman’s never forgiven me.”

“She has too.  It was just a bit of revenge for not letting her drive the TARDIS.”

“That was him not me.”

“Oh, so you’re two different people only when it suits you, is that it?”

The Doctor chose to err on the side of caution and ignore the comment.  “At least tell me you tried to talk them out of it.”  When Rose didn’t reply, he looked over at her to find her blushing.  “Oh, Rose.  Rose, don’t tell me you were in it.”

“Okay, I won’t.”  She didn’t meet his eyes as she popped another piece of guinea fowl in her mouth.

“Traitor,” he grumbled.  But he had to know.  “How long did you guess?”

“Two weeks, two days, four hours,” she replied almost inaudibly.

“Rose!”

“What?”

“You’re supposed to believe in me when no one else does.”

She laughed at that.  “John, I also know you better than anyone else in this universe.  Except Pete, it would seem.  Lucky bastard.”

“Though I think it’s turned out for the best.”

“No one wants to work with you now?”

He tossed his napkin at her head.  “Some best mate you are.”

“You can’t tell me you don’t prefer working alone.  Or at least think you do,” she added.  “Telling me to stay put, then swanning off to do who knows what, insisting you can do it all by yourself.”

“I got better about that in my tenth regeneration.”

“Uh huh.  Just be glad I can’t ring up Martha or Donna.  I’m sure even Jack could give me some dirt.”

“Yeah, well.”  He was not pouting.  Nine-hundred-plus-year-old Time Lords did not pout.  Nor did just-shy-of-six-month-old Time Lord-Humans.

“So if you’re not alone, how did this all work out for the best?” Rose prompted.

That brought his good mood back.  “You’ll never guess who my new assistant is.”

“Erm, that Welsh bloke who’s always mucking about in archives?  Jones, isn’t it?  Ivan?  Irwin?”

“Ianto.”

“That’s right!  And, nah, he’d probably kill you in a day or two.  Can’t be him.”

“Geez, Rose, been holding back, haven’t you?”

She didn’t even try to look sheepish.  “Well, we fought enough as it was.  Didn’t need to add fuel to the fire, did I?”

The Doctor decided that his first order of business tomorrow was to find a new place.  Donna could help.  Hell, Donna could probably find him a new place in no time.  She was brilliant.  Absolutely brilliant.  Even if she did think him a creepy stalker-type.  He wasn’t sure if that was better or worse than being a kidnapper like his universe’s Donna had thought.

“Earth to John.”

“Sorry.”  He sat up.  Had to be the hormones.  “Where was I?”

“Your new assistant is…”

“Oh, right!  Donna.”

“Sorry?”

“That’s who my new assistant is.  Donna Noble.  Well, not Noble.  She sort of freaked when I called her that.  Not sure what she goes by in this universe.  Should probably figure that out.”

Rose didn’t look happy.  In fact she looked worried.

“What’s wrong, Rose?”

“Do you really think that’s a good idea?”

“Of course it is. Why wouldn’t it be?”

“She’s not your Donna.”

“Believe it or not, I’m not a complete novice when it comes to parallel worlds.”  Suddenly, he wasn’t all that hungry.  The Doctor headed into the kitchen and scraped the remaining curry chicken back into its container.  Turning back, he was surprised to find Rose standing in the kitchen entrance.  “What?”

“I just don’t want you to get hurt, John.”

“I’m not going to get hurt.  I know this Donna’s different to the one I knew, to the one that’s been living in my head all these months.”

“It’s easy to forget is all I’m saying.”

“For humans maybe.”

“You’re one of us now, so no knocking it.”

He sighed.  “All right, I promise to be extra careful.  May I be excused so I can watch X-Factor?”

“You and bloody X-Factor.”

“Hey, I don’t complain about having to sit through EastEnders, do I?”

“Yes, you do.  Constantly.”  But she smiled.  “And it’s WestEnders here, got that?”

“Got it.”  He smiled back.

* * *

Her children.  The Doctor ran his finger over the two familiar faces in the homemade frame.  They hadn’t been real, on some level she’d always suspected it before Miss Evangelista found her.  But they’d felt real and she’d loved them every bit as much as if they had been hers.

“Never thought I could hack it as a mum,” Donna had confessed after their ordeal in The Library.  “Tried to keep as much distance between me and kids as possible.  Terrifying little creatures, you know?”

“But you get over it,” he’d said.

“Yeah, you do.  And I loved them so damn much.  Weren’t real.  Weren’t mine.  But it didn’t matter.”

No, in the end it didn’t.

The universe had a sick sense of humor sometimes.  Or universes.

“I see you found Jenny and Owen.”

The Doctor nearly dropped the frame onto Donna’s desk.  “Sorry!  I was just—Rena didn’t—and—”

“Slow down there, Mr. Smith.”  Donna smiled with a shake of her head.  “Wouldn’t put ‘em out if I didn’t want ‘em looked at.”

“Still.  Desk, you know.  Personal space.”  He backed away.  Why did he feel so incredibly guilty?  “Um, I’m just going to go.  To my…place.”  Yeah.  He disappeared into his office, closing the door and leaning back against it.  He couldn’t be more of a blundering idiot if he tried.

“Agh!” he said in response to the knock at the door.

“Mr. Smith, mind if I come in?”

_No.  Need time to calm down and be normal._

_Normal?  Ha!  Spaceman, you wouldn’t know normal if it hit you upside the head._

_Donna, please go away.  Now’s really not the time.  I can’t deal with you…and you._

_Oh, please.  You’ve been putting up with me and me for a week now.  Stop being a prat and open the door._

_It’s your fault I’m in this mess._

_My fault?_

_They were your kids.  Those weren’t my emotions._

_Okay, not entirely.  Hell of a shock that was.  But it wasn’t all me, sunshine.  Someone’s got a case of transference going on and it ain’t me._

_Shut up!_

_And it’s not Jenny either.  Your Jenny not the other me’s Jenny.  How weird is that?  No, it’s the other ones.  The ones you lost before the war.  And…granddaughter?  Bleedin’ hell, you are old._

The Doctor scrubbed his hands through his hair.  _If I open the door, will you leave this alone for now?_

Nothing.  It was as good as he was going to get.  He’d learned to handle ten separate personalities, but one ballsy human woman…

Finally he opened the door.  “Long night, too much coffee.  So I’m a bit…”

“Weird?”

“Yeah.”

“Nah, that’s just you.  Weird’s your normal, I’m learning,” she reassured him.  “Besides, it’s my turn to apologize.”

“What?  Why?  You’ve been brilliant!”

She smirked.  “Of course I’m brilliant.  Do you think being an admin is easy work?”

Shaking his head emphatically, the Doctor said.  “No.  Never.  No way.  Especially when you get stuck working with blokes like me.”

“Pah.  You’re easy, sunshine.  A bit loopy, but easy.”

“Um, thanks?”

“So anyway, this is me apologizing to you for being a right bitch last week.  Had a bit of a row with my mum and the ‘Donna Noble’ sort set me off, then you started in on the doctor bit and….  Wasn’t fair to either of us starting like that.  What do you say to starting over?”  She held out her hand.  “I’m Donna Harper your new assistant.”

Feeling better than he had in a long time, the Doctor shook it.  “John Smith.  But just John is fine, no Dr. or Mr.  And I’ll be the nutter you keep in line.”

Donna grinned at him.  “Now you’re on the right track.”

* * *

Things settled into a comfortable routine after that.  And the Doctor had to admit that being organized did have its advantages.

_I’m sorry, what was that?  I was right?_

_Piss off, Donna._

_Oi!  You don’t talk to your other selves like that._

_I don’t talk to my other selves.  Period._

More organized and more outgoing.  He’d started to interact and even collaborate with a few of his non-Tyler colleagues.

Plus, he had a place of his own now.  A predictably brilliant find by the always brilliant Donna Noble.  Harper.  Donna Harper.

It had gotten better as the months wore on, but the Doctor still got caught off guard.  On several occasions some incident or report led him to call out, “Hey, Donna, remember that time…”  And he invariably came up with transparent explanation for the slip.  But Donna Harper just shook her head at John Smith’s idiosyncrasies and resumed what she’d been doing.

His one year anniversary in Pete’s World—yes, Pete’s World, it was a darn good name for a universe in his opinion—turned out to be a particularly bleak day.  He came to work in a correspondingly bad mood and found no Donna.

Donna Harper had so far been punctual to a fault and always arranged her time off well in advance.  She never didn’t not show.  But today she did.  Or didn’t as the case was.  Not a word all day.  Nor the following.

“She left me,” he said when Rose opened the door.  He was soaked to the skin from the predictably unexpected storm.  “Donna’s gone.”

Rose dragged him to the bathroom, handed him a fuzzy towel and her robe and said, “Strip.”

When he emerged, she had tea waiting.

“Now start at the beginning.”

“There’s no beginning, Rose.  Just no Donna,” he sighed.  “I went to work yesterday and she wasn’t there.  Of all the days I needed her to be there.  She wasn’t.  And she wasn’t there today either.  Not a word.”

Rose covered her mouth.  “Oh God, yesterday…I didn’t even think.”

He shrugged.  “Why should you?  You’ve moved on.  I haven’t yet.”

“I’m sorry, John.  I know how rough the first couple are.  But it does get better.”

Tempted though he was to make some snarky comment about her universe hopping the previous year, the Doctor decided he didn’t feel much like fighting, set aside his tea, and curled up on the couch.  “Mind if I stay the night?  Don’t really feel like being on my own.”

“You’re always welcome,” Rose said, smiling softly.  “Though we’re not watching X-Factor.  Ultimate Gear is re-airing their zeppelin challenge.”

It wasn’t the same with an eco-conscious Jeremy at the helm, but mindless entertainment was mindless entertainment.  “Do they fail spectacularly?”

“Of course.”

“Well, okay then.”

* * *

The Doctor rolled in two hours late the next morning, but being as he kept his own hours, no one cared.

“I see how it is.  I go on holiday for a long weekend and you start falling into bad habits.  Should’ve known,” Donna sighed, then grinned.

“You were on holiday?”

She looked at him.  “You didn’t look at your calendar, did you?”

“Calendar?”

“You know, that thing hanging on the wall with all the pretty pictures and thirty-odd boxes marking the date?”

“But you always tell me.”

“I know I always tell you.  And I did tell you this time, when I first arranged for the time off, reminding you once a week leading up.  You got right fed up with it, so I wrote it in big red pen on your calendar, while you watched, so you’d remember.”  Donna shook her head.  “Which you didn’t.  Predictably.”

Frowning, the Doctor went into his office and saw the calendar clearly labeled.  Around his office hung dozens of sticky notes in his own, untidy scrawl stating:  _Remember, Donna is off!  Donna off.  DON’T FORGET!_

Damn.

“Selective amnesia,” he informed her when he came out.

“Nah, you’re just absent minded, professor.”

Ace used to call him Professor.  A veritable lifetime ago.  Well, three technically.  Or was it four?  Three and a half?  
   
“You all right, John?  You look more peaked than usual.”

“Hm?”

Her hand was cold on his forehead.  “Christ, you’re burning up!”

“Am I?”  He felt fine enough to himself.  Humans were always so bloody warm, though.  Freaky little furnaces running far hotter than they should, inefficient.  Stupid apes, wouldn’t learn better for several thousand years.

“Trust a mother, sunshine, you’re hot.  And not in the good way.”  She guided him to her chair and sat him down.  “Now, you just wait here while I fetch a nurse from the infirmary.”

“I’m fine, Donna.  No bloody nurses.”  The Doctor tried to stand and decided it better to sit out the spinning.  He’d missed feeling the planet turn beneath him.  Funny how it never made him queasy before.  “Fetch me the thermometer in my pen cup, will you?”

“Please.”

“Sorry?”

“I don’t fetch anything, John.  But I’m making an exception in this case.  Just add please.”

“Fine, please fetch my thermomomomomomom—Thermonuclear.  Thermodynamic.  Thermopile.  Strom Thurman.  Beef stroganoff.  Marzipan.  Marzipan.  Marzipan.”  He clapped both hand over his mouth.  Oh, no.  
  
Donna looked terrified.  He kind of was himself.

“I think I’m going to ring for the doctor,” she said.

“Don’t.  Can-can-can-can—Paris, France, love to dance.  Toulouse Lautrec on—”  Bad, very, very bad.  Bad times a billion and bring your ancestors.  And all their luggage.  Maybe a few stowaways.

_Focus, Doctor!_

_Where the hell have you been, Donna?_

_You had a right to a good old mope without me nagging you to pull yourself up and move on, so I’ve been exploring._

_Exploring!  You can’t just go poking about my head, hopping hither, thither and yon down the bunny trail to find Peter…O’Toole?_

_Cottontail, you metacrisised git._

He groaned.  “Metacrisis.  Should’ve known.  Nobel.  Nocturnal.  Nectarine.”

_You start nattering on about ice cream and shoelaces, I’m outta here.  You need to focus, Doctor._

“What’s a metacrisis and why can’t I call the doctor?  And you’re just about to break my wrist, so please let me go, John.”

Glancing down, he realized he was holding onto Donna Harper quite tightly.  “So-so-so-sorry.”

“John, tell me what to do.”

“There’s nothing.  Don’t have the proper faculties.  No facsimiles.  Fiberoptics.  Fibonacci.”

“Facilities?”

He nodded.  “Should have failed before now.”

“You’re not making sense.”  She started away.

“Don’t leave me, Donna.  Oh, Donna.  Oh, Donna.  Oh—”  And he’d thought regenerations were bad.  Ha!  “Please, don’t go.”

“You need help, John.”

“Of course I do.  But no one one three five eight thirteen—Dammit.”  He wasn’t going out like a jibbering idiot.  “Metacrisis.  It’s destabilizing.  Should have failed sooner.”

_Tell her to hit you upside the back of your head.  The um…God, I’m rubbish at anatomy.  I know it’s a lobe._

_Occipital?_

_Yes!  A nice, jarring blow to render you unconscious._

_I don’t want to die unconscious!_

_You are so thick sometimes.  Just tell her to do it.  Trust me on this._

_No, Donna, I’m not telling her to hit me._

_Even if it saves your life?_

“Donna, hit me.”

“I don’t think you’re thinking clearly, John.”

“Not for much longer.  So hit me.  Back of the head.  Good, hard thwap.”

“John, I—”

He grabbed the glass paperweight off her desk and thrust it at her.  “Do it, Donna.  Quick and hard.  Then you can call the doctor.  Dolittle.  Killdare.  Kilimanjaro.  Everest.  Event horizon.  Sunset. Sunset.  Sunset.  Did you know your hair’s the color of sunset?  Always wanted to be ginger.  Been everything else.  Old, young, short, tall, curly—”  Donna’s fingers settled cool and gentle against his lips.

“Quick and hard.  Occipital lobe?”

Smiling, he nodded.  Married a doctor, hadn’t she?

“Not getting fired over this, am I?”

“Just say I fell.  You foundation.  Fountain.  Fortunate.  F—”  She shushed him again.

“All right.”  Donna moved behind him.  “I’d ask for it in writing except no one can read your chicken scratch normally, so…”

He laughed.  “Thank y—”

Darkness.

* * *

 John Smith, senior scientific advisor for the Torchwood Institute.  Funny.  You’d think he’d remember something important as that.  Of course, when even the John Smith bit was fuzzy, it wasn’t all that strange, he supposed.

“Mild concussion,” the doctor continued.  “It shouldn’t cause amnesia.  All scans are normal, so it’s most likely just temporary.”

John glanced over at the redheaded woman beside him.  Donna.  And not his wife like he’d first thought.  Just his assistant.  But the way she looked at him, he didn’t think she was just anything to him.

Not long after that, a blonde came rushing into the room.  “Doctor, are you all right?  What happened?”

“Do I know you?”

The girl looked absolutely crestfallen.  But Donna was there, catching her around the shoulders.  “He’s had a bit of a rough day, Rose.  Why don’t we go out in the hall and have a bit of a chat?”

Reluctantly, Rose went with her.

John frowned.  Rose.  There was something vaguely familiar about her name if not her face.  Not knowing why, he called out, “Whatever it is I did, Rose, I’m sorry.”

The two women stared at him.  He just shrugged and rolled over.  He was kind of tired.

* * *

Nearly a year after his accident, and his memory was still foggy.  If it was scientific, he knew it.  Where he’d grown up, his parents, the man he’d been before the accident…no clue.  John Smith was a stranger to himself.  Oddly, he didn’t mind it.  It gave him a fresh start, and a fresh start appealed to him in some inexplicable way.

As the months wore on, he saw Rose less and less.  Probably best for the both of them.  She’d known a different him, and that was fine.  It felt right to go their separate ways.

The only person from before that he was comfortable around was Donna.  And as many times as she denied it, he suspected they had been more than co-workers.  They had to be.  Every so often he’d catch her looking at him and it wasn’t pity or amusement with his bumbling and forgetful ways.  It was interest.  He liked that.

“Have dinner with me,” he said one evening as she was packing up to leave.

“Sorry?”

“Will you have dinner with me, Donna?”

She frowned.  “You asking me out on a date, John?”

John scuffed his feet against the rug.  “Yeah, I am.  If that’s all right.  I know you’re my assistant and everything, but your job’s safe regardless of your answer.  I just, well, wanted to cut to the chase.  I don’t know what we were before, but I like being around you.  It can just be two friends, if that’s what you want.  Or just tell me to bugger off.  This was a bad idea, wasn’t it?  You know what, forget I said anything.  Just me being daft.  Why would you—”

“If you’d shut your gob for two seconds, you might get to hear my response.”  She was smiling though.

“Oh, right.”  Shoving his hands in his pockets, he waited, resisting the urge to keep babbling.  He babbled a lot around Donna, but he wasn’t sure if it was a new development or something he’d done before.

“I can’t.”  His heart sank.  “Not tonight.  I gotta see if Mum or Grandad can watch the twins.”

“So that’s a yes then?”  Giddy.  He was giddy.

“Yes, it’s a yes,” she laughed.  “I’ll let you know tomorrow.”

“Yes.  Great.  Splendid.”  Today was quite possibly the best day of his life.  And tomorrow, well, that just couldn’t come soon enough.


End file.
